How Do We Teach Our Children?

Mansi Goel

AP Psychology

October 31, 2016

How Do We Teach Our Children?

Part One:

        Just as many scientific advancements, the Pavlovian conditioning had been discovered accidentally. He had been looking at salivation in dogs in response to them being fed in which he noticed that dogs would begin to salivate whenever he would enter the room, even though he did not carry food with him. He learned that dogs do not learn to salivate whenever they see food, however this is merely ‘hardwired’ into the dog. This just simply means a reaction will come from a stimulus that was used to identify a different stimulus. Pavlov then conducted further  experiments to better explain the classical conditioning theory. For a child learning to not touch a hot stove, you would use classical conditioning to have them learn the dangers of it. The reaction that you want to attain is that the child stays away from the stove as it may be hot and can burn them. You would do this by having the stove cool down to the point where it can’t be burned and then place the child’s hands on the stove so they can feel that they stove is hot and they will get a burning sensation if they touch it. With doing this, the child will know not to touch the stove because they will know that they will burn their hands.

        Operant Conditioning deals with people’s intentional actions that can have an effect on their surrounding environment. This is the most simplest form of conditioning in which it is based off of cause and effect. Skinner learned of this teaching method when he started observing  animals as he put them in controlled situations and providing them with different choices & specific consequences for their choices. In order to teach a child how to properly use the toilet with Operant Conditioning, every time they successfully use the bathroom, reward them so they know this is good behavior. If they fail to do so properly a consequence should be put into place so they know that it should not be done like that. Over time they will realize that if they properly use the bathroom, they will receive a reward.

        Albert Bandura’s social learning theory includes concepts of the two theories listed above and two other important ideas added by Bandura. These ideas include mediating processes occur between stimuli and response along with behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning. This theory explains how children are more likely to imitate those people who they perceive to be similar to themselves. Bandura developed this theory with his Bobo Doll experiments. Through the experiment, children witnessed people reacting in specific ways to the classical toy that has a low center of gravity easy for punching. Some people acted positively to the doll, some negatively and some even ignored it. The children were than shown the same doll and they reacted similar to those people who were shown the doll earlier. Any person can utilize the social learning theory to teach a child that  table manners is simple. You must begin by showing good manners yourself and emphasizing that this is the proper behavior. They will then follow your example as you just showed them because they look up to you and want to copy every step of yours.